CHAPTER XXXVMolly Comes Back
THREE days later Blanche’s labours had borne that ample fruit she had looked for. She had known that Nature would fulfil her good work if only she could uproot the mental tares that threatened to grow up in the fruitful soil of Molly’s mind. After the first break through of the barrier of the girl’s reticence Blanche had laboured incessantly, with tact and imagination. She had given the girl no excuse for further unhealthy brooding on the disaster into which her love had plunged her. And Molly’s natural courage had been her staunch ally.
Had Molly been weakly sentimental, had she obtained her early schooling in anything less rugged than her mountain world, the task might well have been more difficult. But Molly was of the very essence of the mountains. Her emotions of love and passionate resentment, and even hate, were strong, and as irresistible as the torrential mountain streams. Her love knew no bounds. Her generosity was no less. And, equally, when stirred to passionate anger, her mood was without mercy. Now her anger and hate were as deeply stirred as had been her love for the man who had betrayed her. And her salvation in those early days lay in the tremendous reaction of it all, and in the manner in which Blanche’s sympathy convinced her that her girlish weakness, however to be regretted, was no crime in the eyes of God and humanity.
So the nurse realised the girl’s swift return to health. And the last concern remaining to her was the final achievement she looked for. Her own work was Molly’s complete recovery with her fresh young heart unburdened.She knew that the white-haired brother she had given up so much for must accomplish the rest.
It was Molly’s first day in the open mountain air she loved. For nearly a week she had lived in the shaded bedroom which Blanche had instantly given up to her. For all that time she had seen no one, and spoken to no one but Blanche and the little doctor who had stumbled on the devious road of his professional life. Now, as she gazed out from the verandah, she felt that the world had again opened its doors, and she wondered and feared for the reception awaiting her.
She dreaded the daylight that she felt to be searching her soul. She smelt the sweetness of the mountain air, and felt that in its very purity it must be condemning her, and mocking her. She longed for the saddle, that she might hurry home to the farm, where she could hide herself from the eyes of the world, where she knew that no word of blame would ever pass the lips of the savage old Lightning. It was a moment of intense panic when Blanche helped her to a capacious lounging chair, and set a light rug about her knees and ankles.
Blanche smiled encouragingly as Molly gazed up at her from the depths of her chair.
“You know, dear, there’s no time in the world for a woman like her first appearance from a sick-room with men-folk around. They just stand around saying fool speeches that aren’t true, and pass her all the help she doesn’t need. It’s the man in them trying to be kind, and, if I’m a judge, they mostly succeed. In awhile Larry’ll be along, and he’ll be talking to you as if he wanted to marry you instead of me. Then Jim’ll get around, with his white hair—he’s only a year older than me—and you’ll sort of feel you’ve known him all your life. That’s his way.”
“I—I wish they wouldn’t come.”
Molly’s voice was full of her panic.
“My dear, don’t say that,” Blanche expostulated, her eyes full of laughter. “Why, do you know, I’ve had to fight them both to keep them out of your sick-room? I almost had to threaten Larry I wouldn’t marry him before I could get him to do the thing I said. And Jim—why, you see, it was Jim who carried you right here to this valley. And it was hard stopping him. Jim’s like some big kid to me, and is just the most foolish best fellow in the world. He’d never forgive me if he couldn’t come along and see for himself you haven’t died and been buried in the dead of night.”
Blanche saw the trouble fade out of Molly’s eyes.
“Why has—Jim—got white hair?” she asked abruptly. “I sort of knew he was only a young man that time I saw him away back.”
Blanche looked out down the valley, where the cattle were roaming the pastures, and the workers were busy in the crops. The scene was one of calm industry, lit by a sun that was powerless to rob the mountain air of its freshness. There was no sign of the men-folk she had spoken of, and so she turned, and, drawing up a chair, sat herself close beside her patient.
“There’s a story to that,” she said seriously. “Shall I tell it you? His white hair is partly the meaning of this place—this ranch. Partly. The rest is to do with the quixotic heart of a brother I’d follow to the ends of the earth if he needed me.”
Molly’s eyes lit. And she leaned back in her chair, waiting for the story, the promise of which intrigued her.
Blanche began her story in a low, even voice. And as the story proceeded there was no shadow of lightness that could lessen the impression which its teller desired to make. She was talking of Jim, whose personality was something sacred to her. She wanted to reveal him to this girl in the light in which her own eyes beheld him.Jim had told her he wanted to marry Molly. So she left out no detail of the narrative that could display her brother as she saw him.
When she told of Jim’s defence of his brother against the Police, and the penalty he suffered for his unquestioning loyalty, the girl’s cheeks flushed deeply, and the shining light of her eyes was something which filled the older woman with delight.
“It’s a shame!” Molly cried, with swift, passionate indignation. “Oh, it was cruel! Think! But he got him away. Eddie had done no wrong. No. He did right. And then—and then—they punished—Jim?”
Blanche smiled.
“No,” she said. “He escaped.”
Molly sighed, and Blanche went on to tell of the escape. The girl listened with a further deepening of interest as she came to the moment of Jim’s desperate straits. It never occurred to her to question the identity of the man from whom Jim had escaped, and Blanche scrupulously withheld his name.
Then came the moment of Jim’s approach to her father’s farm, and Molly became even more deeply absorbed. And at the end her eyes lit with excitement.
“I remember,” she cried. “Oh, yes. I packed his wallets with food. Think of it! Just think! It was your Jim, an’ I fixed his food! Tell me.”
And so the story went on to Jim’s meeting with Dan Quinlan, and of his sojourn in the Valley of Hope. It told of how Dan had fed him, and how his privations turned his hair white. It told of how, in those long winter months he conceived the idea of helping, through the agency of that great valley, others who, like himself, had stumbled on the road of life. It told of his ultimate safe return to civilisation, and of the help he had sought from her, Blanche, in setting up this refuge. And it was not until the story reached its close that Blanche, withkeen instinct for her purpose, concerned herself with McFardell’s place in it.
“Do you know who it was that Jim escaped from on his way to penitentiary?” she asked. “Can you guess? Sure you can if you think awhile.”
For a moment Molly gazed at her blankly. It was as though the interest, the wonder, of the man’s story still held her. Then of a sudden her eyes hardened like grey granite, and Blanche realised the completeness of the thing she had achieved.
“Andy McFardell,” she said, in a low, hard voice.
Blanche nodded.
“Yes. And Andy McFardell has discovered Jim’s hiding-place here, and hopes to regain his place in the Police by betraying it to them. Even now he’s working to send Jim down to the penitentiary.”
The girl sat up in her chair.
“But he won’t succeed—you won’t let him succeed?” Molly cried, in an agitation she made no effort to conceal. “It’s just too crazy that he can get away with it. Andy? Oh, no, no! Tell me it won’t be. Tell me Jim’s too clever. Tell me, promise me, you—you won’t let that wretched man succeed. It’s—it’s awful.”
Blanche shook her head. And her confidence was reassuring.
“Now, don’t scare yourself, dear. There’s no Police could get Jim in this valley. There’s a hundred ways of making a getaway. Nature didn’t set up these mountains for a trap for folk like Jim. I’ve a big conviction that Andy McFardell can’t get away with this play. If I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t be sitting around with you now without a worry. I trust Jim as I never trusted any human creature in my life. I—— But here he is himself, coming along up on the rush from the barns. Maybe he’s located who’s sitting around.”
Blanche rose from her seat and waved a greeting to thehurrying man, and Molly remained where she was, a victim of an overwhelming return of that panic which Blanche had done so much to dispel.
Jim bared his white head as he came. His smile was one of frank delight.
At that moment Molly’s one desire was for flight. She yearned that the earth might open and swallow her up. Never in her life had her shame seemed so great a thing. This good man, it seemed to her, could have nothing but contempt for a creature like herself. And yet his eyes were smiling, the clean-shaven mouth was so generous, and his whole expression so tremendously kind. Then his voice as he greeted her!
“At last,” he cried. “Why, this is great!” He laughed delightedly. “You know, Molly, Sis here has been all sorts of a terror to us fellers. The best we could get out of her was you were going on right. Larry implored and even threatened her. I—why, I’d have promised her anything in the wide world for a sight of you. But——”
“Promised, yes,” Blanche laughed.
Jim nodded at her indulgently.
“Anyway, you’re around at last, Molly, and I’m God thankful that’s so. These hills’ll soon set colour in your cheeks, and in a day or so you’ll be racing down this old valley of ours in the saddle. Why—— Oh,” he cried, as he took possession of Blanche’s chair, “Sis has beat it. Well, we’ll sit around and yarn.”
He glanced round at the open French window through which Blanche had retreated. Then, for all his promise of talk, he gazed out down the valley and remained silent.
Molly made no attempt to reply. She was beyond words, completely overwhelmed by the presence of this white-haired man whom she had learned to know only through his sister. At last, however, a single remarkfrom Jim set a great peace sweeping through her troubled soul.
“God Almighty’s pretty good, Molly,” he said, in a voice that rang with sincerity. “I’ve just lived for the day when I could pass a hand to those who helped me to the life that looked to be passing right out of me. You were part of that bunch.”
For the first time the girl dared to look into his face. But it was with a mist of tears that blurred her vision that she stumbled out her reply.
“I—I’m—just glad,” she said.
And after that talk came easily, and they sat on talking, talking, with the intimacy of a great friendship.
And so Blanche found them later, when she deemed it the moment to exercise her authority as nurse. She took Molly back to her room with a feeling of great thankfulness at the amazing change Jim had wrought in her. The girl was transformed.